


Magic

by NorthernSerpent



Series: Falice: From A to Z [13]
Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alice-centric, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, F/M, Magic, Squib Alice, young falice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-10-08
Packaged: 2019-07-28 05:50:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16235462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NorthernSerpent/pseuds/NorthernSerpent
Summary: Alice is not one to let anybody tell her what she can and can not do. Hogwarts AU.





	Magic

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [tumblr post](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/86039) by ink-splotch. 



> Notes: Inspired by this tumblr post. (http://ink-splotch.tumblr.com/post/104058597984/facts-from-the-2014-uk-editions-of-harry-potter)

Alice waits eagerly for her 11th birthday and what it would bring. She waits for the owl to perch on her windowsill with a letter confirming her magical gifts just like it had every member of her family for the last few hundred years.

She is ready for her life to change.

Her father tells her that the Sorting Hat better put her in Slytherin, just like it did him and the threat in his words is barely covered by his tight smile and joking facade.

When the day finally comes, Alice runs up to her window as the morning rays fall through the cracks in the blinds. There is nothing waiting for her.

Her parents exchange a worried look.

“Maybe it's late? There _is_ a war going on,” her mother says hopefully.

Her parents doesn't know what to do and they disagree about how best to handle it.

Her father blames her mother. There were no squibs in his family. Alice must have gotten it from her since her great-great aunt’s third cousin was a squib.

Little Alice watches from the stairs as a glass goes flying across the room and shatters against the wall next to her father’s head.

“Next time, I won’t miss,” her mother says, darkly.

That is the moment Alice decides she’s going to Hogwarts, no matter what. Even if her letter never comes.

She stays up half the night forging a letter and the other half crushing some dirt and cookies together to look like owl pellets. Alice he runs down the stairs, waving the parchment enthusiastically in the air. Her parents are so pleased and they’re not yelling at each other for the first time in recent memory.

Her father complains about bureaucracy and those unreliable owls. “Mark my words, they’ll be hearing from me.”

Her mother hugs her, kisses her head and says I knew you wouldn’t disappoint me.

They take her shopping at Diagon Alley and Alice’s stomach is doing backflips the whole time. She’s so relieved when her stingy father refuses to splurge on a new wand from Ollivander’s. Apparently the old man is a mudblood-sympathizer and his wands are expensive and overrated.

“You’ll do just as well with Great-Aunt Wendy’s old wand,” her father tells her gruffly.

Somehow she makes it to Platform 9 ¾. She braces herself for impact, but she miraculously manages to make it through the wall. She sits next to a red-headed girl whose nose is buried in a book, discovers her name is Mary and that she’s the first in her family to be a witch.

Alice wants to tell her she’s the first in her family to not be one. Instead, she answers the ginger’s burning questions since the administration’s muggle-born transition program needs some serious revamping.

Together, Alice and Mary make it across the lake, up the grand stairs, through the Great Hall doors and onto rickety stools to await the Sorting Hat.

Fred Andrews is the first to be called. _Gryffindor_.

Clifford Blossom. _Slytherin_.

Alice holds her breath as the names are called one by one.

FP Jones. _Gryffindor_.

Tom Keller. _Hufflepuff_.

Her father’s aggressive back and forth with the Ministry and the school meant that she ended up on the roll call. It’s an oversight she would be forever grateful for.

Professor Weatherbee places the hat on her head, the rim flops over her eyes blocking her view of the large crowd of student.

_Well, well, well… What do we have here?_

She shuts her eyes and repeats a desperate mantra in her mind. _Not Squib. Not Squib._

Alice made it this far. She has a lighter up her sleeve, magnets in her pockets, and a wand that will never be anything more than another stick.

Alice is not going home. Even if she is a squib.

_You know it has to be this way_ , says the hat with a chuckle and her heart sinks. _Slytherin it is!_

She blinks unbelievingly as a crowd of green-clad students hoot and holler and her appointment.

On her third day, Alice stumbles across the Room of Requirement when pacing back and forth, conjuring up ideas of how to maintain the ruse. It gives her books of muggle magic tricks - she starts with cards before moving to sleight of hand. She figures out how to use an ipad (how is this contraption not magical?) and she watches videos of science experiments, learns how to use chemistry to her advantage.

Alice finds loopholes and exploits them. She gets out of flying lessons by getting a medical exception and fakes allergies in herbology.

She bribes another Slytherin, Sierra, to charm her feathers with a flick of her wrist from across Professor Flutesnoot’s class. In return, she gives Sierra her very thorough History of Magic notes. Alice is the only one who is capable of staying awake through the class.

After Christmas, Mary from the train, now a proud Ravenclaw, brings Alice a new lighter and a very heavy chemistry textbook.

“I thought you might find it interesting,” is all Mary says.

But no matter how hard Alice tries, no matter how many tricks she has up her sleeve, she can't get out of the practical component of Professor Grundy’s transfiguration class.

Alice can do theory better than anybody else in her year, yet she will never be able to perform a Switching Spell. For the first time since sneaking her way into the school, Alice wonders if she should have accepted her squib fate. The ruse is impossible to maintain. She’ll be caught.

She’ll be expelled.

FP Jones stumbles across her in the far corner of library as tears stream down her cheeks.

“Do you… Do you want to talk about it?” he offers awkwardly because he's an eleven year old boy who doesn't know what to do.

She shakes her head vehemently. She’s not going to confide in this quidditch-prodigy extraordinaire who mouthed off in class and did the bare minimum. A pang of jealousy hits her chest as she thinks of how easy magic comes to him.

Besides, he’s a _Gryffindor_.

“I’m fine.”

“Is it because of the practical test?” he pushes.

Alice stares at him, mouth agape.“How did you-?”

“I’ve seen your classwork,” he shrugs.

Panic swells in her chest. Apparently he’s been paying attention to her. Apparently there is something to notice.

“Who else knows?” she demands firmly.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, FP. Who else knows I’m a squib?”

Judging by his blank expression, he hadn’t known and Alice had just given herself up to him.

“You’re a squib?” FP blinked. “I thought you were just bad under pressure.”

“Fine, yes,” Alice relents because it’s already all out in the world. “I’m a squib from a pureblood family and no matter how many magical plants and creatures I can identify, my wand will never work. It sucks and I hate it and if you tell anybody about this, FP, I will destroy you. I will not have this world taken away from me.”

Alice fully expects FP to snitch but she underestimated Gryffindor’s courage that bordered on recklessness. He transfigures her matchboxes, and she keeps his herbology homework alive.

By fourth year, FP is starting to master non-verbal spells under her tutelage. It’s his idea to start learning two years ahead of time. He claims it will help him help her.

It requires a great deal of concentration and mental discipline, something which FP struggles with sometimes. But after four years of pretending to be a witch, there is no better teacher than Alice.

FP’s grades are still passing-but- unremarkable. But he’s a better wizard than he ever thought he could be.

Alice does well with arithmancy, potions, herbology, muggle studies, history of magic. These things are not about inherent power.

In fifth year, she starts holding OWL prep sessions in the Slytherin common room after Mary suggests it. As with any Ravenclaw, Mary loves knowledge, but she struggles with the limitations of standardized testing.

“I need your help, Alice,” she pleads. “I can’t make heads or tails of this on my own.”

Soon, she has to move her potions tutorial to the Room of Requirement after it gets too large. Hal Cooper is among those in attendance and Alice respects his dedication to bettering his already high grads. She’s known of him her entire life (pureblood circles are very small), but they’ve barely exchanged words in that time.

One day, he hangs back, awkwardly pulls on his green-and-silver tie as he asks her to join him at Hogsmead that weekend.

FP is weirdly exasperated when she tells him.

“Hal Cooper asked you out? You do know the Cooper family is an offshoot of both the Blossom and Malfoy families, right?”

“That is quite a pejorative statement, FP,” Alice narrows her eyes. “My family has known his for generations.”

“Does that mean you’re going?” he asks softly, and it feels like he’s asking her something more.

“Yes.”

She goes, and it’s nice. Hal makes her laugh and her parents are over the moon when they hear she’s seeing the youngest Cooper Boy. A kind-hearted pureblood boy.

They see each other a lot over the summer break. They’re families seem to look for any excuse to bring them together. They have normal, magic-less dates since they’re both underaged. Neither of them are allowed to use magic outside of school. Alice doesn’t complain.

Then September rolls around again, and that yearly pre-school anxiety begins to set in. Alice almost tells Hal since he’s her boyfriend and that’s what normal people do. But something in her gut twists and she can’t.

Hal was born powerful and he does everything he can to maintain it. He gets the highest grades, not because he loves to learn, but because he needs to be the best. He only befriends those who can one day help him, and she’s pretty sure she only caught his eye because she’s better at potions than him.

If she tells him her secret, what is stopping him from using it against her? He could have the power to destroy her.

Alice breaks up with him two days before taking the train back to school.

Hal glares at her as she walks past him on the platform. Her mother doesn’t bother to hide her disappointment with her daughter.

She finds FP sitting with Fred Andrews, who are aggressively reliving some quidditch match. Alice knocks on the door. “Can I take this seat?”

FP beams when he sets his eyes on her. “Alice! How was your summer?”

FP doesn’t ask about Hal in front of Fred. She’s totally fine with that.

Later, much later, when they’re alone in the Room of Requirement lying on a sofa and watching these ridiculous muggle soap operas, FP brings it up. It had been two months and she was beginning to think they’d never talk about it.

“So what happened with Cooper?” he says, trying really hard to be casual.

Alice shrugs. “It didn’t feel right, you know?”

FP considers this. “What would be right?”

“Somebody who doesn’t make me feel powerless,” Alice admits. “Somebody who makes me be the best version of myself.”

“For what it’s worth, Alice, you make me be better,” FP says it like it’s the most obvious statement in the world. “You make me want to be better. “

Her stomach does this weird somersault and for once she has no idea what to say. “Oh. Um. Thanks. I guess.”

Two weeks later, FP is in the infirmary after falling off his broom during a quidditch mishap. He’s lying in bed, waiting for his leg bones to finish being reset, when Alice storms in and starts yelling.

She doesn’t even really know what she’s screaming. Something about needing to be more careful, the rules and regulations of quidditch need to change, that beater needs to be suspended, and what the hell was he thinking trying to do a backflip to catch the snitch?

“Alice, breathe. I’m fine,” FP reaches for her hand.  
“Don’t ever scare me like that again,” she says tearfully. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“I’m sure you’ll find somebody else to help with your transfiguration homework.”

“I’m being serious, FP,” her steely eyes meet his. “You’re more than my just my study partner. You’re _everything_.”

The moment he’s discharged, FP goes looking for her. He finds her in the Great Hall, sitting at the Slytherin table.

“FP! You’re out!” she smiles, but hesitates at the determination in his eyes. “What’s going on?”

He pulls her up, and cups her chin.

“Alice, I’m going to kiss you,” FP informs her. She feels like she can’t breathe.

“Why?” It’s barely a whisper.

“Because you’re everything to me.”

He leans down, and gently plants one on her in the Great Hall, in front of the entire school. Slytherins are jeering at him, Gryffindors are roaring. Hufflepuffs awwww, and the Ravenclaws don’t seem to care at all.

Nothing ever felt so right.

 

Together FP and Alice study, invent, scheme, and support her lies. Together, they grow. She still has her lighters, and muggle tricks in up her sleeve.

Alice knows who she can trust. She knows who to call for a distraction, for backup with a little white lie. Mary’s encyclopedic knowledge is close at hand; Fred Andrew’s patience is too.

FP is kept closer still.

He makes her feel powerful and loved. 

Alice, a girl who can’t cast a spell, somehow manages to pass her NEWTs and graduate with potential career paths laid out in front of her. She has plans, and she has her people to back her up.

At first she heads to the Ministry, but quickly becomes disillusioned by the broken bureaucracy.

Alice finds herself when she writes. She criticizes the government, writes pieces about discrimination within the wizarding community. She advocates for muggle innovation, argues that non-magical beings are not inferior in any way. Alice tears down the entire system in her articles.

Her parents are aghast at her words and at her chosen life partner, and every decision she ever makes.

Alice doesn’t care.

Because power should never be something you’re born with.


End file.
